Automobiles are ubiquitous in today's society. From their introduction in the late 1800's, automobiles rapidly became a favorite mode of personal transportation, replacing the horse for local commuting and largely the train for longer distance journeys.
However, as the power, speed and sheer number of automobiles has increased, so too have the dangers posed by their use. Probably the greatest risk to pedestrians, for example, is the automobile. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2013, there were 4,735 pedestrians killed in traffic crashes in the United States, i.e., about one crash-related pedestrian death every 2 hours. Additionally, more than 150,000 pedestrians were treated in emergency departments for non-fatal crash-related injuries in 2013.
There are a number of tactics which pedestrians can employ to mitigate the risk posed by automobiles. For example, the CDC recommends that pedestrians travelling at night improve their visibility to the drivers of automobiles by carrying flashlights and/or wearing reflective clothing. However such techniques have been advocated for decades and are insufficient to substantially alleviate the dangers posed to pedestrians by automobiles.
Additionally, such safeguards assume ample line of sight between oncoming vehicles and pedestrians, as well as reliance on alert automobile drivers to take evasive action if they see pedestrians in their automobiles' travel paths. Neither of these assumptions may be valid under various circumstances. For example, in urban areas (like New York City), line of sight between pedestrians and oncoming vehicles may be very limited due to parked cars and buildings at traffic intersections. Exacerbating the problem further, pedestrians cannot rely upon their hearing in urban areas to alert themselves to the dangers posed by oncoming vehicles due to the typically high decibel ambient noise including a perpetually large amount of vehicle noise. Moreover, pedestrians and automobile drivers are more distracted than ever, e.g., due to text messaging or listening to music while walking or driving, rendering the unwritten contract between pedestrians and drivers to watch out for each other less viable than in past decades.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide techniques, systems and methods to generate alarms when vehicles are approaching a person or object to mitigate risks to pedestrians (or other objects, like other vehicles or high risk fixed structures) from oncoming vehicles.